


Word Blind

by Phoenix_Rose



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Dyslexia, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-24 00:48:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7486806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenix_Rose/pseuds/Phoenix_Rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes has a secret, one he's never willingly told anyone, not even John Watson. It's more secret than the drugs and the skull and the... well, we don't need to tell everyone about THAT one, do we? This is the tale of when the entirety of the fools of Scotland Yard found out the secret, and how he finally walked away from a case. <br/>Oneshot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Word Blind

It was a quiet day when they found out. Odd really, to his mind – full of drama that he was – that such a monumental happening he would occur on such a boring, ordinary day.

He had vexed his ~~flatmate~~ ~~colleague~~ friend, on this day. Not unusual, really. He’d forgotten the blasted milk, again! He did that a lot. (Honestly, he had to delete something!) Normally it had no effect save an exasperated, long-suffering sigh, and perhaps a well-aimed newspaper to the back of the head. (Usually when he had just settled down to think in his mind palace. Most displeasing.) Today though – or rather, the previous night – John’s most recent girlfriend (Anne? Sarah? Oh – he didn’t know!) had left him upon deciding that John preferred him to them, So John wasn’t all too fond of the Detective right now. (But it wasn’t his fault! He couldn’t help that he was **so** much more interesting than them! Anyway…) So in his already soured mood, John had dealt with this slight memory lapse… inexpertly, we shall say. His ears still rang from _that_ confrontation. It was worth it though - Mycroft’s spy camera’s microphones had chosen that particular day to malfunction so spectacularly that they stuck on full recording volume! He deserved it for spying on them, really. (And surely the bleeding ears _had_ to be an exaggeration, didn’t it?)

Now, due to the prior incident, John came to Scotland Yard in a dramatic fit of pique. Strictly speaking, they shouldn’t _really_ have gone – it was barely a 6 – but he was desperate for a case. The boredom was killing him, rotting his finely tuned brain as sugar does a tooth, leaving him wretched and bursting for either the thrill of a triple homicide with no motive (when was Moriarty next free?) or the sweet release of the white powder coursing through his brain, dulling his alert senses, leaving his mind hollow; hushed; stimulated. But, seeing as neither was available, he was stuck with a 6 which was really a 5, and without any sort of a drug. Not even nicotine (Damn John’s infernal… Doctorness). It was most irksome.

Arrival at the Yard was not very dramatic, save for a few swears that John let out (which really mustn’t be put in print, he didn’t even know the second one!) when he hit his ‘dodgy’ leg on a chair. His plight was, however, ignored (as usual) by his younger, smarter friend, who upon entry marched straight over to the Chief of Police, currently one D.I. Greg Lestrade, and began inquiring.  
“So. A person, statistically more likely to be a man, breaks into a house…” he paused and observed Lestrade before correcting himself. “Not house, Manor… He breaks into a Manor steals the Wife’s… Late wife’s… late Duchesses pearl necklace-“  
He was cut off.   
“And we found the Baron dead in the woods nearby.” Lestrade finished with a sigh. He really didn’t want to have every detail deduced out to him, and Sally’s very audible cry of, “Freak’s here!” pretty much described the rest of the Force’s opinion. He watched the Consulting Detective’s famously ice cold, emotionless face; it remained so, save for a slight ripple of emotion that marred the pristine vacant indifference of his cool, pale face.   
“Any witnesses?”   
“One. The gardener, he wrote down all he wanted to tell us. Said the last time he spoke to a tall, thin Detective he was ill-treated.”  
Lestrade looked pointedly at the closest tall, thin Detective, who had the decency to redden ever so slightly in the cheeks, before clearing his throat and returning his colouring to the snowy pale normality. He held out his hand to Lestrade, who placed a document in his hands. He then switched angle, and held the same document out to his faithful Blogger… who looked incredulously at it and then ignored it!   
“Wha- you want me to read it to you?”  
A sigh. Was this man an idiot on purpose? Or did it come naturally. Pity, he’d had such high hopes for him. John knew in an instant what that sigh meant, but instead of taking the note with a slightly exasperated, slightly pained look on his face and reading it, he said  
“No!”  
The entire force turned round to watch the normally placid man rip their least liked helper to shreds of freakishness, with lashings of the tongue. (And surely as an ex-soldier he was sure to be able to do that?)   
“I’m not going to read it, Sherlock.” He continued. “You’re a grown, reasonably responsible man. Well, slightly responsible anyhow. You can do it yourself.”  
Sherlock only registered one word – “No!”

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. He was – to put it lightly – screwed. His breathing slowed only slightly as he wiped his slightly perspiration covered palms on his trousers, before taking the note back with only a slight frisson in his wrist. But – as calm as he looked – his mind was a-whir. He tried to calm himself with what he was assured was humour; imagining lots of mini people rushing round with dictionaries and reading glasses and magnifying glasses, with a loud siren blazing above. It did little to help though, he was not amused by a vision of people less panicked than he. He closed his eyes (his useless, traitorous eyes) briefly. It was too long to be a blink; too short to be recognised as anything else. His long white fingers traced the paper and he deduced all he could from it.

Paper: A4 refill pad, ripped – Not official, written in a hurry.  
Ink: Black, standard ball point pen running out – resources of the force running out, more funds needed?  
Handwriting: messy – the writer, the witness was clearly rushing. Traumatised? Yep, but by the murderer or him… hm. Good question.

It was truly terrible though, good Lord. This was going to be murder on his already struggling abilities. All right – he took a breath - here went nothing…

Words: ???

He let out a deep sigh, lamenting his doomed fate, and scanned the paper. Nothing. So he stopped, tried again – concentrating hard on the first important word.  
NMDAYO  
Wrong!  
MDOAYN  
Nay!  
MONDAY  
Yes!

So, so far he had – ‘It was Monday.’  
He looked at a clock. It had been 5 minutes already, and had 3 words. God damn this infernal note! He wanted to crumple and sob and howl at the injustice of his pain. Instead though, he steeled himself and read his discovery aloud, ignoring the soon to come dubious, incredulous, disbelieving looks. He was afraid, and it was an odd feeling. He’d felt it only once in recent memory, in the hated bar when he realised he could no longer trust his own senses, the only things he had to rely on! How could this reduce him to such a similar feeling of blind panic?

Ah yes, humiliation. The well-known fiend, that reddened the cheeks of a person faster than a blown kiss brought a blush to a young maiden’s complexion, however pale it may be. And could it be that he, Sherlock Holmes, was… afraid, of disapproval? No, not disapproval. Pity. When they knew his closest secret, one that only Mycroft and Mummy knew due to him telling them (Medical people usually had it on file. Most annoying.), there always came the pity. Or the condescending voices.

Like last week! Only a check-up, John had insisted after he fell in the Thames during a chase, yet it still left him despondent. The nurse had been reading his file, talking to him normally, until she read that one word. And then- and then, well, he may as well have been two.   
“I want you to take these every morning. Make sure you tell someone to write it down. I _also_ want you take these every evening. Make sure you tell someone to write it down here, too. Do not forge-“  
She stopped talking then. Because he stormed out. He didn’t really need a check-up, did he? He could survive the flu, he’d survived a ruddy drugs trip for God’s sake. More than one! He could take the flu. But he could NOT take this condescending, rude, horrid nurse.

Anyway, continuing the tale of woe. Those dubious, incredulous, disbelieving looks soon came. It was nasty. John opened and shut his mouth like a goldfish, struggling to find the words. They came out soon enough. “Ar- are you kidding!? It’s been 5 minutes Sherlock. 5. And you’ve only read 3 words. Are you doing this on purpose?”  
Sherlock looked at him with a world-weary look.   
“I can’t John.” He muttered.   
“Pardon?”  
“I can’t!” he yelled. Oops, that was much louder than intended.   
“You can’t read? That’s impossible, you’re a genius, how can you not?”  
“It has nothing to do with intelligence, John! You are a Doctor, how did you not realise? Did you think I was just too lazy to read things myself? No one is that lazy! I cannot read because-“  
He stopped blushing. The room was silent in the wake of his outburst.   
“Because what.” John said quietly.   
“Dyslexic.” Sherlock said in a rush. Then he repeated that blasted word calmly. Not loudly, not quietly. Just said. Why was he ashamed? He shouldn’t be ashamed. It wasn’t his fault. But all the taunts and insults ran through his mind like fresh wounds.

 _Word-blind._  
Idiot.  
Stupid.  
Lazy.  
Freak.  
  


And he wanted to cry again, like he had so many times when he was a child. Every time he read in class, every time he tried to order food off a menu… he just couldn’t. So he didn’t anymore. A simple fix. John was looking at him with pity in his eyes; Sally and Anderson and Lestrade, they all looked down. They felt bad for the insults, because now they came true. He couldn’t read a simple note. He was a freak. He tried to have dignity as he strode out the door, scarf round his neck and coat on his back, but the pearly tear running down his cheek told otherwise.  He walked out alone, till one caught him up.

“It’s alright.” They said, “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. They slipped one hand in his and wiped his insipid cheek with the other, caring and soft. And out they walked together, Sherlock Holmes and Molly Hooper.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! My penname is Phoenix, and if you're reading this you like Sherlock. But now, serious time. The experience described in the story, the one with the nurse, actually happened to someone very dear to me. I won't name names, as they're a bit embarrassed, but I will say that despite their dyslexia and other learning difficulties, they are incredibly kind, sweet and a wonderful person. And though I'm sure no one reading would be so patronising, my thinking is that if I can make one person realise that everyone deserves respect, I will have succeeded in life.
> 
> Thank you.


End file.
